12|31|21
The last day of the year.
‘I’ am always looking for trouble
Making other people’s business my own
–
A bit of concern around the new year bc my partner is going out and I don’t really want to, at least at this moment. Perhaps that will change. But right now it doesn’t sound attractive.
And I’m anticipating feeling alone/lonely/insecure at home. So I can take care of that one in advance.
Really it’s because I’m tired, I had a fun night last night and I’m a bit over-stretched. So this body does not want to stay up late. It doesn’t make sense for me to.
So then the move is like, ‘early bedtime.’ That’s what will be nice for the body.
I don’t really have any complaints about that actually. I can make coffee in the morning tomorrow. All of this sounds nice.
The other ingredient is, ‘insecure.’ She’ll be doing her own thing without me.
I remember there was a time when she was moreso the insecure one, and I would be stoked whenever she went and did anything by / for herself, because it showed her independence. And now I’m scared of it because I’m scared of her leaving. It’s funny.
The sweet experience is, she’s her own person, this is the flavor of what she likes to do in her life. She likes to dance way more than I do. It only makes sense that she goes and dances. I don’t have to.
"Some Other Guy " The Beatles at the Cavern REMASTER Take one and two. - YouTube
“has taken away my sweet desire, yeah, some other guy now”
It’s really wild that all the media, songs, etc out there are by feeling-beings. A big whirlpool of desire keeping everyone in the middle. Everyone WANTS to get to the middle.
I’m trying to have it both ways, I want to give her full independence but I also want some guarantee that she’ll be around for me.
One has to go
Really it’s just that I want some stuff and I’m whining, wheedling, hoping I can get my way. Pretty rotten actually.
Awhile back I was like, “I’ll just up my social skills, and then I’ll be able to get what I want.”
But really a lot of that was manipulation-charisma stuff that I’m working to get away from now.
And I was taking for granted, “getting what I want.”
There’s not really any problem with the wanting part. Sure, sex is nice. Company is nice.
Part if it is I’ve put so many moralistic rules and conditions on how I operate with those. My family background is rather puritanical and I can see that coming out with how I think about romantic partners especially.
As well as prospective interests. That’s an outcome of my morbid fear of rejection, too. I’m definitely not 100% done with that one, might be useful to dig into.
My fear generally runs along the lines of,
“I’m attracted to all these girls, and if they knew then everything will be awkward and bad so I’d better not allow them to know”
Not the most conducive to meeting anyone!
And then I trap myself in loneliness.
Interesting, interesting!
Well I can look for that the next time I meet someone I’m interested in. Right now I can say, it’s ok however it goes next time. I’ve opened the door. Right now there’s no one right in front of me so it’s quite literally immaterial. It’s not something to worry about.
It’s definitely not for granted that they’ll experience it as awkward and bad. Some people live in ‘awkward, bad,’ but that’s just where they live. I probably won’t be interested in them in the first place.
Maybe they will experience awkward, bad, but that’s ok. That’s a completely normal human emotion. Not anything I need to be sour about.
Fear says that their awkward-bad will spread like wildfire and that in no time, “no one will like me,” I will be a ‘weirdo.’
Which. Fair enough.
But also, so unlikely at this stage! Happiness and harmlessness has been so stable in my experiencing over the last few years, and people have met me there just about always. It’s been easy.
I guess there is an element of ‘risk’ there, but nothing is gained without risk.
There’s sweetness in all the pretty girls out there! They’re just out here, living their lives same as me, chasing this or that desire, trying to feel good, trying to ‘be good.’ It’s neat. They’re just as manipulative as me too, just as sneaky. But that’s just how we are, us semi-hairless apes.
It’s really sweet. It doesn’t really matter if they sleep with me or not. It’s ok. The sweetness is bigger.
So I can experience that sweetness when apprehending rejection, when apprehending ‘left-out,’ because that’s what we people are doing. It’s very big and very sweet. So clear, it is a different sweetness as @Miguel and @claudiu point out. Love has this stickiness that can’t be missed, but this is clear like clean, cold spring-water.
It reminds me of the ‘streak’ that @Srinath describes when he becomes free, but this isn’t pungent, it’s completely clear.
‘Me’ is pungent, but not this sweetness.
It’s interesting, my consideration from this ‘point-of-view’ has nothing to do with me, nothing to do with ‘my’ ‘plan for them.’
It’s just, it’s neat that they’re wandering around the world.
And sometimes we hop into bed! And it can be such a sweet wonderful time, it really doesn’t even matter if they reject me at that stage because of some insecurity, or if they have a bumpy time, I can be there for that. It is all part of the human drama, and I don’t blame them for their humanity. It is what they were born into… they never saw it coming.
And all the manipulations it’s the same thing… of course they manipulate, they manipulate for the same reasons that I have: to be safe, to try and carve out some control, to not feel lonely, to not be left alone. Of course they will do that. It’s ok.
This is so wonderful. I feel more alive than ever.
My normal instinct at that stage of sweet closeness is to generate codependency because I am supposed to protect them, I’m supposed to hold them close, I’m supposed to prevent their insecurity, I’m supposed to act in certain ways so they never feel bad. It’s all forced, and it doesn’t work of course because their insecurity is still there. Their insecurity is deep, just like mine has been deep. It actually makes it worse to try and placate it.
And part of the whole thing is my own insecurity of being alone… the only reason to engage with all of that silliness in the last paragraph is because I think that if I’m alone that it will be a bad time. Which I clearly still think as demonstrated by my initial reaction about staying home on NYE.
That’s the difference in charge, my background negativity vs. my high rating of the ‘meaning’ of hanging out with some pretty girl.
I’m alone right now, and I’m not having a bad time. There are little vortices of bad feeling. I can keep removing those. But it’s far from a bad time.
And for that matter half the time that I’m hanging out with this or that person I sort of wish I was doing something else lol. I guess that’s what makes it a belief and not a fact.
Q: Now I can look at a person and see such a normal person and I wonder how can such a person be so attractive to one who is in love. This is something I would never see when I was in love; I would never see that aspect.
R: Love covers up what the person actually is like and presents them in a good light.
Q: Oh yes a fantastic light … not just fantastic; love can make that man into the most perfect human being. Into a god.
R: Now what about actual intimacy? In intimacy you see the other as they actually are … ‘warts and all’ is the expression.
Q: That is not only better … it is far more interesting.
R: It does not make you repulsed. One is neither attracted nor repulsed.
Yes the lack of repulsion is key. I know the exact taste of the nausea now. I can watch for it.
Warts and all, I like that. It’s genuinely seeing someone. For the first time, each moment again.
We do indeed have warts. Just as we have some graceful swoop of the nose, we have warts.
That, too, is sweet. It’s a part of the fact.
R: In actual intimacy, when you are with another person one hundred per cent – and there is neither attraction or repulsion – and you see clearly what other people would call attractive or repulsive … what does that do?
Q: Oh, that’s delicious! That’s delicious because that is freedom. Then I’m free from the grip of emotions.
R: So, seeing the other for what they actually are, do you see ‘the good’ in them? The potential?
Q: There is good and bad in everybody. I am aware of what humans call good or bad. I can see them with either eye, as it were; I can see them with intimate eyes or human eyes. I am aware of that and I don’t take much notice of the human measurement. In intimacy this whole moment, everything, is magnificent.
In intimacy I can respond, taking the whole scenario, the whole situation, into consideration. … the identity goes from identity to identity.
Yes… everything is ‘rote,’ there are always certain beats to hit… it’s like a connect-the-dots drawing. Everything is planned out / set up in advance. There’s no artistry in it. And it’s not sweet either, because the way ‘I’ know where to go next is the love and desire and the hate and the fear.
I’m thin… what is going to happen next?
Peter: ‘a sweetness that was palpable rather than feeling based. I heard the words ‘This is not only for me, this is for everybody’ as I was literally being bathed in this sweetness.’
This sweetness always accompanied an experience (…) that I was close to my destiny and an awareness that what I am doing/ longing for is not merely for my ‘peace of mind’, but that it is for everybody, for every single man, woman and child on the planet – for peace on earth.’
This experience of sweetness is about being close to one’s destiny (actual freedom) whereas a PCE is a glimpse into the actual world that can happen anywhere/ anywhen on the path/during the process to one’s destiny.
–
Contemplating rejection further - I can see that I am afraid of being ‘cast out’ due to having taken too many risks, and being rejected by all.
So it’s interesting because I’m afraid to fully explore freedom because that is hanging over me.
What if I am ‘cast out?’
Ostracism (Greek: ὀστρακισμός, ostrakismos) was an Athenian democratic procedure in which any citizen could be expelled from the city-state of Athens for ten years. While some instances clearly expressed popular anger at the citizen, ostracism was often used preemptively. It was used as a way of neutralizing someone thought to be a threat to the state or potential tyrant though in many cases popular opinion often informed the choice regardless. The word “ostracism” continues to be used for various cases of social shunning.
Shunning can be the act of social rejection, or emotional distance. In a religious context, shunning is a formal decision by a denomination or a congregation to cease interaction with an individual or a group, and follows a particular set of rules. It differs from, but may be associated with, excommunication.
Interesting, greek ostracism required a quorum aka a minimum number of assembly members to vote for a specific person to be ostracized.
It required 6,000 athenians to all agree that the person should be ostracized. That shows how extreme it is for that to happen.
It happens with a much lower bar in a relationship or family setting, though.
I’ve been here before: if my family decides to reject me, I’ll be ok. There are already small rejections every day and that’s ok.
If my partner rejects me, that’s ok. That’s part of her freedom. Again, there are already many small rejections.
And then it’s just the same for anyone else who I could meet. Of course they can reject me. That is actually sweet… that is their freedom to operate in action.
So the extra-spicy version is, ‘everyone rejects Henry.’
6,000 people all agree to kick me out.
Because I asked too many girls on dates.
“There’s Henry… he’s creepy af.”
That’s the fear, right there. I’ve seen girls say that about other men, the disgust-disdain dripping from their voices.
In fact I’ve seen it so many times that it’s almost certain that someone has said it about me. Actually I am certain.
And it was ok. I’m sitting here typing this. It’s quite light.
I do have the stress from this anticipation/memory, though. Ok.
Really it began in like Kindergarten, being taught how I’m supposed to operate in relation to girls. We were sort of taught to hold them at a distance. To be super careful.
Somehow it was ok to relax more around people of our own gender. I guess because of all the sex problems that people produce. It’s a human-conditioning coping mechanism for a thorny problem.
That is no longer relevant for me.
I don’t have to keep being careful like that.
A woman is not a fragile vase.
More on shunning:
Social rejection occurs when a person or group deliberately avoids association with, and habitually keeps away from an individual or group. This can be a formal decision by a group, or a less formal group action which will spread to all members of the group as a form of solidarity. It is a sanction against association, often associated with religious groups and other tightly knit organizations and communities. Targets of shunning can include persons who have been labeled as apostates, whistleblowers, dissidents, strikebreakers, or anyone the group perceives as a threat or source of conflict. Social rejection has been established to cause psychological damage and has been categorized as torture[1] or punishment.[2]
Interesting, “established to cause psychological damage”
So that’s the instinctual response I’m having to it, “psychological damage.”
This memory keeps popping into my experience as I contemplate ‘ultimate rejection,’ of walking by myself on a beach in the winter. I remember I was interested in this girl, I was very infatuated with her, and she was shutting me down subtly but I was having a little trouble taking the hint. But I remember walking around with this sense of devastation, total barrenness. So I’m getting the flavor of that as I wander in this arena.
Normally rejection is super coddled, like completely taken for granted that it ‘feels bad.’ People will comfort you like no tomorrow. I remember when a girl-friend of mine was broken up with, another one of her friends pulled out all the stops, set up a ‘girl’s night,’ bought tubs of ice cream.
Because of comforting to prevent the devastation-barrenness.
And actually that’s the same wound I carried after my two major breakups later on. I remember that barrenness.
Now that I’m getting into it I can see that that feeling has characterized / kick-started all of the darkest periods of my life! Ok, well it makes sense that I have a bit of skittishness around it lmao
I’m having a great time with all this. It has the same high-stakes thrill as riding a skateboard super fast or riding a motorcycle
Barrenness is definitely pretty antithetical to sweetness. Certainly not perfection. It has a stark quality… stark reality maybe.
R: I remember you talking about some of the negative things that can happen. You spent the best part of one day experiencing panic … we are looking for some negative things. For as far as I can remember, that was four months ago. Then there was that time you experienced everything as being stark – barren was the word you used.
Q(1): Yes, I thought that I had gone back into that spiritual stuff that I used to experience.
R: You said that in the middle of it that you remembered something that I had written that was important to you. Where I have written about traversing a barren wasteland … about needing nerves of steel whilst in durance-vile. You realised that back in your spiritual days this was where you would have gone for hope, so as to avoid falling into despair. To come out of despair one must enter into hope. And you said that you were sitting there, up on the hill over-looking the ocean …
Q(1): … and I realised that I couldn’t go into hope again.
R: … couldn’t go into hope again … and you sat there and realised that you were to simply sit in this starkness, this barrenness, and not move in any direction whatever. Not move psychologically, I mean. That is; emotionally or mentally. That is very, very important – not to move.
R: I remember well, you saying that. I thought to myself: ‘Well, that’s good’. Because that indicated to me that something was very strongly happening to you … no matter how unpleasant. Not that I wish a panic experience upon anyone – but if it happens it is part of life’s experience. That is where the ‘unknown’ of it comes in. That is where you think: ‘Oh, my goodness, what am I doing to myself?’ Or: ‘What is going on?’. I consider that is what lay behind you coming in the other night giggling and saying: ‘I don’t know for sure what’s going on’ – not your exact words, but something similar. The sense I got of it was: ‘I’m not too sure what’s going on, whether this is a good thing or not, but it’s happening!’ But, you are doing it.
Q(1): And I remember that it was very much to do with … like looking at my hand and realising this is the hand of a human being – and a human being obviously lives on this planet. And I could see it like a claw … I could see ‘chicken-skin’ … and also that it was getting old … that this was the end of a 49-year old man … and that’s it.
R: I can relate to that from seventeen years ago when I first started getting into all this. I too looked at my hand, wondering why I had never seen my before – it had a stark quality to it. Stark is a good word but it unfortunately has negative connotations – for it was seeing stark reality for the first time. I remember being fascinated, despite my qualms, and then one day it shifted through to an actuality in which the magical qualities of the intimacy of directly experiencing the actualness of my hand became apparent.
Yes, it is barren, it is stark. This cannot be rushed.
It’s the facts of my reality, stark reality.
Staying in this experience, the rejection is firmly in my view, it is no longer something I’m avoiding. Because of this, I’m really looking at it stably for the first time. The previous couple of times were always fleeting (though still full of insight).
Similarly, whenever I’ve been in barrenness in the past I’d be looking for a way out of it asap.
I can use fascination as a tool for attentiveness without leaving this.
So tired. Unhappiness. Mopey.
Hungry. This physical body requires food.
My whole reality is barren. I can see the barren, dead nature of it coming from every direction. And the actuality is sweet. It’s behind, ‘barren.’
I haven’t even wanted to look at reality for a long time because of ‘barren.’ That’s the wound I took, was from those barren experiences. I moved away from the city because I never wanted to experience that again. But it wasn’t the city. It was me.
Nothing safe or warm anywhere, just cold dead walls.
It’s all the same reality under there, it’s just been hidden from view. Dissociated.